The present invention relates generally to the construction of large-scale systems for serving comestibles, i.e., food, beverages and the like, in relatively large volume to substantial numbers of customers, e.g., institutional and industrial cafeterias and like food service systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel comestible serving apparatus and a method for erecting such apparatus which minimizes structural modifications and adaptations to a building structure housing the apparatus and further minimizes installation time.
The design, construction and installation of a large-scale food service facility necessarily requires that the construction and arrangement of the food service equipment must be specially tailored to the dimensions, configuration and utility sources available in the service area of the building structure in which the system is to be erected. Particularly in the case of equipping a pre-existing building structure with a food service facility or remodeling an existing food service facility, it is often necessary to structurally modify the building floors, walls and utility systems to accommodate a new food service facility. Further, it is common practice to fabricate and erect much of the food service equipment in place. Disadvantageously, these conventional techniques for constructing food service facilities are time consuming and expensive and, especially in the case of remodeling an existing facility, substantially disrupt the normal ongoing operation of the facility and in many cases can necessitate the complete shut-down of the facility during construction.